Fiat Stilo Review from Turkey

2003 Fiat Stilo Dynamic 1.6 16v

Summary:

General Comments:

The city steering system is a quite nice feature. However, any electro-servo steering system is as light.

The 103 Hp 1.6 L 16V engine utterly fails to deliver any significant performance. Downshifting will not help to save a difficult situation.

Especially when the engine is cooler than the equilibrium, the failure of "fly-by-wire" accelerator pedal to release the gas is annoying. (i.e. engine continues on in high rev. to warm itself up)

Brakes are snappy. A mere step on the pedal causes severe deceleration. Should use caution when using in traffic to avoid being tailgated. Dosage requires extreme care until getting used.

Facade of cockpit is quite fussy and needs to be studied before understanding what the car is trying to tell you. The speed warning feature becomes annoying in no time and you simply turn it off or up to a speed you never actually reach.

Gears not slick enough and require quite a good timing in order to retain the torque and / or speed. Otherwise a loss in the rev. s end up in loosing a great deal of speed and torque.

Bump steering too evident to be missed; even for a novice. The smallest of a bump or rough spot makes the steering wheel jerk quite sharply. Obviously too much of king pin angle has been used to assist the system. Beware the quite hard spooling counter steering of the wheel after curves for the sake of your thumbs and fingers.

Side view mirrors too small and too convex. You squint to see anything at all. Images appear much smaller than other cars' mirrors as we are used to.

Tire roll is not as severe when your eyes get used to it. Wind sound is insignificant as you are not able to exceed speeds which mean business anyway.

Lean and lateral movement is quite dangerous for inexperienced drivers in high speed weight transfer. Suspension should have been way stiffer than this or at least roll eliminators added.

18th Mar 2004, 04:25

I test drove a 3 door 1.2 Stilo and didn't notice any of the problems mentioned in this review. In particular there was no noticeable problem with the steering, and I was driving on rural roads in the west of Ireland (i.e bumpy roads). I switched between national roads and back roads. Initial acceleration was slower than I'd like, but then this is only a 1.2 engine. Once it got going I had to keep an eye on the speed though, it drifted up to 80 mph (20 mph above the speed limit) before I notice it - so no complaints there.

20th Apr 2004, 06:50

I've just purchased a Stilo Dynamic and I have to say it's brilliant. I have not experienced any issues with the steering or suspension on bumpy roads. It's a thoroughly comfortable and fun car to drive. I agree the dash board is complicated to get set to your specific requirements, but once you've succeeded its fabulous. Would definitely recommend one to a friend.